Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: barge

On a Mississippi River barge, just below the lock at Guttenberg, Iowa.

There's some sort of large construction project going on at the harbor in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. These folks were doing some of the work the day we were there. Photo shot from the deck of SS Badger.

Barge Sarah Spencer waiting for a break in the lock traffic at Sault Ste Marie in 1998. The blue paint job's pretty unusual; most photographs of this ship show her in a more conventional scheme. At this time she was being pushed by tug Atlantic Hickory, a tug with a high pilot house that made for a real exotic look. (Sorry, no picture: I ran out of film.) Jane Ann IV, her current pusher, is less odd-looking. For thirty-odd years this ship was called Adam Cornelius, and to my view was one of the best-looking lakers. In 1989 they chopped off part of her stern and inserted a tug; this happens to occasional ships, and keeps threatening to become common because the crew requirements are different, and less expensive for the shippers. Most of the resulting conversions destroy the ship's looks; not so with this one.

Shot from Cheboygan State Park. Bois Blanc Island in the background.

At Port Huron, with Sarnia across the way. Presque Isle is technically a barge with a tug tucked into her stern, but both have the same name and they've rarely been separated and have always operated as a single ship. In fact, they're so effectively a single ship that the Coast Guard didn't buy Litton Industry's argument that the combination justified the (lower) staffing levels required for tug-barge operations, so she carries a full crew. Now operating as part of the CN Great Lakes fleet, but for many years she was the only ship on the Lakes wearing Litton colors on her stack.

Sarah's being pushed by Jane Anne IV , but you can barely see the tug in this photo. That's Sarnia, Ontario, in the background. Blows up nicely .

Port Huron, Michigan, 1995. This was the first time I saw this barge (and the first time I took Joan out boat watching). Real fresh paint that day. Not the prettiest thing on the lakes, and a dreadfully dull name for the barge. But an interesting vessel. Photo taken with my Genesis III and very fast film. Most of the pix in the set have that streak....

The Corps of Engineers has a large crane barge, called Paul Bunyan, at Sault Ste. Marie. Shown here in Davis Lock on Engineers Day, 2005.

Another view of the barge Sarah Spencer at the Soo in 1998. ================ I shot this photo with my Chinon Genesis III, an exasperating camera I had (still have) a love/hate relationship with. It's certainly capable of taking terrific photographs, but it's got a mind of its own (the documentation calls that mind a "microcomputer", which was already an odd usage when the manual was written), and it likes to argue about things. The idea was to build a fully automatic camera--it's fully autofocus, allows no direct control of exposure, is only marginally programmable, and by default it makes framing decisions for you. Not exactly an ideal camera for this photographer. At least a point-n-shoot doesn't offer its own opinions.... I've been playing with the camera this week. Still takes fine pictures; still drives me batty.

Corps of Engineers barge Paul Bunyan in Davis Lock at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The name reflects function: This baby can lift 250 tons. Big. Another Engineers Day photo from last June.

Here's a better illustration of the layout of the Marquette upper harbor coal dock. The ship Presque Isle is snugged up against the ore dock, and has run its unloader to the coal dock. The whole thing's conveyors and similar transport mechanisms. The really neat thing about the Marquette upper harbor is how close you can get to the boats. This photo shows that well.

August 1990: The ship named Presque Isle beside the ore dock called Presque Isle in Marquette, Michigan. Beyond the dock is Marquette's Presque Isle Park, which may explain something. But the ship's probably named after Erie's Presque Isle. I posted another photo of this ship some time ago, with a comment on the mixed paint job the ship would be sporting a couple years hence. This photo shows the original paint scheme. The ship is unloading coal into the conveyor system known as the Presque Isle Coal Dock. A piece of that facility clips the upper right corner of the photo. The conveyor moves the coal to piles around Wisconsin Electric Power's generating plant (still another facility named Presque Isle). Strangely, the (ship) Presque Isle is too wide for the ore dock to reach the hold's center, so she'll head elsewhere for an ore load. Properly speaking, Presque Isle is not a ship at all; she's a barge with a tug boat built into her stern. If you study the details in this photo, you'll see how they fit together.

This ship is Presque Isle heading into Lake Superior from Sault Ste. Marie in the summer of 1992 (I think). When Presque Isle was under the control of Litton Industries, the hull was black ; since her lease (then sale) to the Steel Fleet, she's been red. This certainly looks like a transition paint job. The odd paint plainly shows why this is no ordinary Laker. The red hull's a very large barge, and the black paint defines the tug which propels the barge. Litton had a notion that they could reduce the operational costs by creating a barge/tug combination which could be staffed according to Coast Guard regulations governing such combination vessels. That didn't work out for Litton--the two are apparently too closely integrated to be a convincing combination--but the model's worked for owners who've converted existing hulls to similar configurations. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When we were at the Soo last summer it looked someone seemed to be building condos where I took this picture. Good place to live, but it won't help the view.... Camera: Chinon Genesis III

"Sunday, Oct. 8, 1939 Barge Constitution in slip ft of Orleans St. Detroit, Mich" Constitution was launched at West Superior in 1897 and lengthened in 1905; she was the first Great Lakes barge to be lengthened and the first equipped with steam mooring winches. The self-unloader was added in 1926, and she was scrapped after a long career in 1966. Oglebay Norton absorbed the Pringle fleet shortly after this photo was taken, but kept the vessel in Pringle colors. John Greenwood's Namesakes 1956-1980 tells me she was named after the retired Navy frigate, not the nation's foundation document. Greenwood, whose writeups are usually relentlessly factual (though often a bit odd), had a soft spot for this ship. Constitution seems to have spent much of her career based in Toledo, hauling coal to lower lakes ports. Borucki's Lakers

"Sunday Nov. 6, 1938 Discarded barge 'Grampian' of the Blodgett fleet rotting on river front" Grampian's name honors a mountain range in Scotland. She was built at the Davidson Shipyard in 1894, and had been laid up at the same yard since 1930 when this photo was taken. The hull wouldn't be officially retired for several more years. You can see the remains of a rotting dock, here, and the entrance to one of the Davidson yard's abandoned slips. John Greenwood's book Namesakes 1930-1955 has a very similar photo, dated 1941. The main difference, besides more closely framing the subject, is that a power line's been run across the river in the interim. That looks to be the stern of Chieftain in the foreground, by the way. There's more information about the Davidson yard with the Chieftain photo in this collection. There's a 1915 diagram of the shipyard on this plat map , roughly in the center of the riverfront section. Borucki's Lakers

"Sunday Nov. 6 1938 Discarded wooden barge 'Chieftain' rotting on river bottom Davidson Shipyard" This one's a little sad. When Chieftain was built in 1902 she was the largest hull on the Great Lakes (360 feet long), and apparently remains the largest wooden lakes vessel ever constructed. She was built as a barge by Davidson Shipyard for Davidson Steamship, and was part of a fleet of two steamships and three barges for most of her career. The entire fleet was technically obsolete by 1929, and all five vessels were thereafter moored at the Davidson yard. The Davidson's Bay City shipyard originally opened in 1873. It was abandoned in 1932 as there was no longer any need for a shipyard specializing in repairs to wooden ships. The Davidson family was invested in American Steamship Corporation and in the Tomlinson fleet, so they remained active in the industry. (There's much more information about the Davidsons here . It appears reasonably accurate, but some details differ from my other sources. These disagreements are pretty common, and in this case are relatively minor; don't let them throw you.) John Greenwood's book Namesakes 1930-1955 tells me Chieftain wasn't declared abandoned until shortly after this photo was taken, apparently because her oak construction kept her seaworthy long after maintenance ceased. Perhaps it was news of that impending abandonment that sent Mr. Borucki to the deserted shipyard. We have a couple more photos from that excursion, which we'll soon share. Borucki's Lakers